Chris Stephens, Scottish National Party MSP for Glasgow South West expressed his solidarity with the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) regarding the HDP closure case in a Medya Haber TV broadcast.
“I and many colleagues in the Scottish National Party and indeed other political parties in Scotland express our support and solidarity to the HDP. The HDP are a democratic political party and banning them is a democratic outrage,” he said.
Stephens also made reference to the Belgian’s top court’s decision regarding the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Turkey, and that the PKK should not be classified as a terrorist organisation but a ‘party to a conflict and that this decision should be “implemented in all European countries.
The Scottish MP pointed out that it was a ‘contradiction of wisdom’ that PKK remains on Europe’s ‘terror’ list.
“‘Kurdish fighters took on Daesh in Syria and on the Turkish Syrian border and in other places and it seems quite bizarre that having the Western governments relying on Kurdish fighters to do that and then to label these same Kurdish fighters as terrorists just seems to me to be a complete contradiction of wisdom,” he said.
“Europe and the US,” Stephens further noted, “can not keep relying on Kurdish fighters and then label them as ‘terrorists’ when Kurdish fighters have been responsible for holding back Daesh right across the region and so I certainly would like to see a real recognition of Kurdish rights and of the Kurdish people’s right of self determination.” Said the Scottish MP.
